Life Hunter

After Arima left the principal's office, he attempted to decipher the map of the academy. It was actually pretty big, with an imposing main building, a vast terrain, and tens of annexes.

His assigned classroom was in the main building. The latter was simple to find since it was the enormous building that was erected in the middle of the courtyard. To give a clear image; the entire academy was built in a sort of 'square pattern'.

At the center, there's the main building welcoming the most visited classes. Around that building, there was a square courtyard and beyond that, there were the many annexes that were put together forming, once again, a square.

The only edifices escaping that 'square rule' were the training grounds, the several magic towers made for hazardous laboratories, and one smaller tower made for the headmaster to work and the teachers to consult each other.

After going through the courtyard, Arima stepped inside the main building. This giant structure could maybe be compared to the largest hotels back in the modern world. Arima was pretty sure that if the main building were to be accommodated for livelihood purposes, it could very easily welcome more than 10 000 rooms.

Thus, it was at that point that Arima started groaning. Finding this building was a matter of fact. As for the classroom, it was completely different.

"Why do they classify them with a letter, a number, and then the topic of the class? It's a fucking mess," Arima complained. Night and Lanya were also staring at the map trying to understand it.

As they were walking in the corridors and losing themselves in the halls, every student they passed by would whisper to each other. Of course, it didn't pass unnoticed by Arima.

His expression sunk, "School… one of the most dangerous things there is…gossip," He muttered and looked around. The students were trying to avoid his eyes for some reason.

Arima sighed and approached a certain group. The only one who actually didn't avoid him, "Hey, can you tell me where this class is located?" He showed them the classification of the room written on the document.

One of the girls viewed the number and thought for a second before smiling, "It's really simple to find. It's at one of the top floors. I can bring you there if you want."

"Thanks, that would help a lot," Arima smiled and responded. He followed her and used a spiral staircase that went from the bottom floor all the way to the roof. It connected to all of the floors and anyone looking at it from below would be able to glimpse a small part of each floor. It was a really modern-like experience. Even more when the high-quality glass had been brazenly used to illuminate and decorate the entire building.

The student led Arima to an especially open area of the sixth floor and pointed at a big door on the wall. But it was almost indiscernible because of the huge gathering of students in front of it.

The girl who brought Arima there smiled wryly, "This is your classroom. You are the new teacher hired by the academy, right? Because you're a Z rank, a lot of people are interested in you and came here to wait."

Arima shrugged, "I see, thank you for leading the way," He glanced at the mob then disappeared from where he was before appearing inside the classroom. Fortunately, the room's door was closed until the teacher opened it. If it wasn't, then it would be full of students already.

Lanya saw Arima teleport and smiled at the girl, "Thank you again, bye," She said and teleported too.

The student gazed at her until she disappeared, "She was really pretty…" She mumbled afterward and smiled, "They were able to teleport so easily… it means they're really strong," She concluded and was filled with excitement.

Arima observed the class and thought it should be called an auditorium instead. It was incredibly spacious and obviously was enchanted with space magic to be bigger. It could very well accommodate more than a hundred students with the elevated seats alone.

From Arima's point of view, at his left was the entrance and at his right, the wall was almost entirely made of glass which let the sunlight in without actually heating up thanks to certain enchants. In fact, the whole classroom was enchanted to keep an optimal temperature.

And, of course, there was a desk and a 'blue board' for the instructor. The latter seemed to be made to work with mana instead of outdated chalk.

"Will you start right away?" Lanya asked with a smile and Night jumped on the teacher's desk.

"Before that," Arima approached the bookshelves placed at the very back of the room. He looked through the books and mused.

Lanya walked to his side and picked up a book, "What is all of this for?"

"Those are all manuals and encyclopedias," Arima answered while staring at an opened book in his hands. "To be fair, I don't think they're useful in any way. But I need to know what they are learning currently."

Arima flipped through the entire book in a few seconds. And at the same time, his magic sigil glowed faintly. He repeated that for all of the one hundred or so books there was.

Once he was finished, he rubbed his temples and groaned. "Overexerting my brain is not a good idea after all," He remarked and went toward the door of the classroom. "Lanya, you can sit anywhere you want. You wanted to attend the lecture as well, right? Make yourself comfortable."

Lanya chuckled and went to sit near the glass wall on an extra chair she had brought, ready to listen. Until now, she only had been taught by Night and it's not like she had received a full lecture. So, she was excited to see what Arima would do. Meanwhile, Night yawned and nonchalantly readied himself to take a nap on the desk.

Arima sighed and unlocked the door. He immediately went back to his desk afterward and waited. In no time, from the moment someone noticed the door was open, the students started 'pouring' inside.

When every seat was occupied, the rest sat down on the ground or remained standing while others were even prepared to listen from outside. Arima spotted Ofia and Lena coolly entering the room before they sat at the front row as if it had been reserved for them.

"Okay," Arima sat down at his desk, "For starters, I will introduce myself. I'm Arimane Blade, but you can call me Arima. The little guy here is Night Bahamut, my soul beast. The lady over there is Lanya, a companion of mine," He pointed at Night, who was already half-asleep, and at Lanya who merrily waved her hand at everyone. When the students saw her, they were rendered speechless by her looks and almost mistook her for an angel because of the light coming through the glass behind her.

"As you may already know, I'm a Z rank mercenary approved by the guild, and I'm here to teach in this class for a period of two months from now on. Regarding what I will instruct; most of it was left to my desires. But, essentially, I will develop your ability to improve, survive, fight, and think for yourselves."

All of the students focused to their maximum. The tone and manner of speech Arima employed resonated strongly within them. They wanted to listen more.

"For now, since this is my first lecture, I will teach you a really simple thing," Arima resumed, "Let me ask you; what is the most important thing in a battle?"

A male student raised his hand first, "Physical aptitude!" He unhesitatingly said and Arima lightly laughed.

"No," He smiled and refuted, "Who else?"

A girl raised her hand, "The mana pool's quality?"

Arima shook his head, "No, what you are listing me right now is not the most important things in battle. You're currently talking about what we use in a battle. That is not my question," He explained and waved his hand toward the bookshelves far at the back. A few manuals were pulled toward him and started floating in mid-air.

The pages of these few books started flipping alone. The students admired the scene silently. Then, each book stopped at one specific page at the same time. The things depicted in those pages were things such as physical strength, aura manipulation, mind strengthening, mana pool, martial arts, and so on.

"These are the things you learn to fight," Arima declared, "Let me rephrase my question now; what do you require to win a battle?"

This time, Ofia raised her hand, "Unshakable determination and courage."

"You're getting really close, but what you just said is too broad and can't be alleged in every situation," Arima replied and Ofia was a bit surprised.

At one point, a student in the crowd raised his hand, "To fight you need the will to win, the fearlessness before pain, and the resolve to face death," He said with a dull voice. "The mindset of a winner is one of impartialness and mercilessness. 'Kill' and 'live' are his choice to make in front of his enemy."

All the students looked at him in shock and were greatly shaken by what he said. They were not dumb enough to not realize that he was talking about killing. They murmured with each other and some even felt slightly indignant. Only a dozen of students didn't raise their voices nor did they say something to rebut that student's words.

Arima glanced at the boy and smirked, "Correct," He declared and the mouths of every student in the room instantly closed. Arima flicked his fingers and put the books back in their respective shelf.

"Do you know what is the main reason why people die in their first battles?" Arima suddenly asked, "Besides inexperience, they could also be like you; having been taught how to fight. Then, why would they die so easily?"

"In this academy, they teach you how to fight. That will also be my main job. But they don't teach you what it is to fight. When you come to face a threat to your life for the first time, you will be scared. It's the same for everyone. But, when people start a fight in that state, they will tend to choose escape and forget about removing the threat. And that's the moment where you'll realize you lack the motivation to win and the mental fortitude to resist against pain and death."

"Now, this example I just gave was just in the case where you stumble upon an enemy with a minimum of strength, barely capable of matching yours. But there are also cases where the enemy is so weak compared to you that you'll beat him without worrying at all. The problem with that, later on, is that when you will need to confront a worthy opponent, you'll possibly cower in front of one of his strikes and die because of a stupid mistake," Arima kept talking, very calmly and the clearest possible.

"What I want you to learn of this is simple. You need to always reinforce your mind and self-control. Therefore, when you'll fight a true enemy, remember to never flee, even if death puts a rope around your neck. Because a rope can always get loose."

"That is the basis of everything I believe in and that is why I'm mentioning this slightly perturbing subject as my first topic. Do not fear failure, do not fear death, do not fear talent, and do not fear the future. Because as long as you retain your will, nothing will undermine you for the simple reason that nothing can defeat you. If death harvests you someday, laugh at it. It will be your victory," Arima grinned and the students gulped.

He stood up just after, "Fine, for now, I will set a schedule and some rules in regards to my classes. This was my first lecture so I let everyone enter as they wanted. From now on though, I will set a class every hour. The number of students will not surpass forty each time."

"One student can only come once a day. Do not even try to challenge my memory. The only ones exempted of those rules are you six," Arima pointed at six students. Three of them were Lena and Ofia, and the dull guy who answered to his question. Plus, three others who showed an exemplar attitude during the lecture, "These six are the ones that left the biggest impression on me."

"Also, lastly; for one month I will only be doing general courses, but after that, I'll constitute a class with forty students that I would have picked myself. The goal of the special class will be to participate in the ranking competition, two months from now on, and win," Arima declared and walked toward the exit.

"This will effective from tomorrow onward. My class will begin at 8 am. Don't be late. I'm sure someone has already recorded my lecture with a crystal. Spread it. The ones accepted in my class will be the ones that watched this lecture at least once," He added and left the room. Lanya and Night followed him out.

The students left in the classroom stared agape at empty space. From the beginning to the end, the new teacher had completely overwhelmed them. His presence was such that they couldn't even raise their voice. They only recovered from their daze a few minutes later. They were eager to spread the word in the entire academy while others wanted to directly start training their mental fortitude one way or another.

As expected, the same day, the recording of the lecture became viral. Every student was deeply impressed by the confidence and consistency in Arima's words. The other teachers also were profoundly surprised that a mercenary could express himself that well.

For them, the content of the lecture was more of a sort of encouragement, it wasn't an actual learning-material. Ultimately, what really caught the attention of the academy was Arima's strong self-assurance and combined with his identity as a Z rank mercenary, making him supposedly one of the strongest, he had become the hottest talk.

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Meanwhile, Arima returned to the Inn. He considered his first day at the PA as a way to 'launch' things. Coincidently, not long after he came back, Jerio visited and gave him a small safe made of trinite coated with adamantite.

Arima received it and opened it barehanded, completely disregarding Jerio was about to give him the key. The prince's jaw dropped. Arima gave him back the safe after taking out the papers that were inside of it. It was the first time Jerio ever saw someone destroy coated trinite with just physical strength.

Arima inspected the document he got after Jerio departed and flipped through the content.

"Your impressions?" Night asked while being in Lanya's embrace. Yeah, she would do that occasionally.

"Well, if the two inventors are indeed the same person, then he's indisputably a genius. This blueprint is basically describing how to give sentience to an inanimate object."

"How do you do that? What could allow an inanimate object to suddenly become a life form?" Lanya asked perplexed.

"The fundamental is similar to the soul summoning, but because you can't use your soul on anything, with this method, we're using our spirit and mind," Arima started explaining.

"To shorten things in the simplest way possible; you first enchant the material in a particular way. It has to be able to circulate mana in itself, like blood in the veins. Then after that, you set an array to converge the mana into a single place. You can call that a core or the heart itself. Then, the last step is injecting your spirit into the 'heart' and fashion the personality of the object. It's like programming an AI."

"Incidentally, that last part is very hard and tricky. If you have a bad vision of things or certain emotions, it will be transmitted to the object. When that happens it's over. It will be born to hate that particular thing and could lead to a disaster. For example, imagine a world-renowned terrorist. If someone like that were to give sentience to an object, the final 'product' would most likely become a world-hating creature, ready to destroy everything it sees," Arima sighed and stored the document.

"That's something…" Night commented and Lanya nodded.

"Well, it's definitely useful to me. I already have an idea about what I should use this technique on, just that it will be slightly different than a dungeon," Arima said and grinned.